The Joyce Theater Kicks-Off Fall '20 Season of Online Programming

Linda Shelton, Executive Director of The Joyce Theater Foundation, announced today a slate of companies kicking-off the organization's Fall 2020 season of streaming performances on September 22. Among the magnificent troupes whose works will be presented in this first round of online performances are Contra-Tiempo (Los Angeles), Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (Chicago), Ate9 Dance Company (Los Angeles), and Far From the Norm (London), available through Octover 19, 2020. Additional programming for Fall/Winter 2020 will be announced soon. In accordance with New York State's Covid-19 safety guidelines, the performances will be available through The Joyce's online platform, JoyceStream. While access to The Joyce's collection of curated digital performances, interviews, podcasts, films, and classes is free, gifts of any size provide crucial support to The Joyce Theater Foundation's current operations and will help to ensure the future of New York City's diverse dance landscape. For more information, please visit www.Joyce.org.

"We embark on our 38th season six months after The Joyce and other NYC performing arts venues were shut down to control the spread of Covid-19," Executive Director Linda Shelton said today. "Although we are still unable to present live, in-person performances in our beloved Chelsea home, we are thrilled to connect and share with audiences around the world these powerful works by four companies who share our passion for rich and inspiring international dance."

The Joyce Theater Foundation presents the following programming during the first of its Fall 2020 season of streaming performances:

Contra-Tiempo's provocative 2016 work, She Who: Frida, Mami & Me, choreographed by Marjani Forte-Saunders, explores the lives and mythology of Mexican Visual Artist Frida Kahlo and Nigerian Deity Mami Wata. Their stories, timeless and provocative, have spurred a nuanced and multicultural dialogue between African American choreographer Forte-Saunders and the Urban Latin Dance Theater Contra-Tiempo. Together, they traverse the turbulent waters of protest, feminism, resilience, and identity through these earthly and mystic beholders of culture. She-Who: Frida, Mami & Me runs approximately 25-minutes.

A work of stirring resilience and reconciliation, Indumba, by Deeply Rooted Dance Theater, was originally created by choreographer Fana Tshabalala to illuminate the perpetual impact of unresolved apartheid politics in his native South Africa. Tshabalala, Artistic Director of Broken Borders Arts Project, spent three weeks in residence with the Chicago-based Deeply Rooted Dance Theater in July 2017 to adapt Indumba, which means "African healing hut," for an American audience. The running time for Indumba is approximately 50-minutes.

Danielle Agami founded Los Angeles-based Ate-9 Dance Company following 8 years working under Ohad Naharin, Batsheva Dance Company's founder and house choreographer, perfecting his trademark Gaga style of movement. Her 2017 hour-long piece, Calling Glenn, a collaboration with Wilco percussionist Glenn Kotche, flows seamlessly through rich visual and audible atmospheres created by Agami's blend of brilliant strength & nuanced physicality, and Kotche's live sound as the dancers embody a rare presence filled with beautiful moments of honesty and insight. Calling Glenn is a true collaboration of sound and movement inspired by life's exhausting common rituals and desires.

The acclaimed Hip-Hop collective Far From The Norm offers four short films, including a documentary about the troupe's magnetic artistic director Botis Seva. Can't Kill Us All unravels one man's mental unrest as he navigates the turbulence of dealing with two global pandemics; Reach, by director Billy Boyd Cape, explores themes of love, abandonment, and fatherhood; and B.R.E.A.T.H.E. is a searing response to the countless deaths of Black people at the hands of the police. The documentary, Botis Seva: Air features an exclusive, rare solo dance performance by Seva.

About the Companies

Ate9 Dance Company was founded in 2012 by Artistic Director Danielle Agami. Israeli-born, she was a member of the Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv for 8 years. She brought the company's Gaga movement to the U.S. and remains one of the few masters of the language, teaching workshops throughout the world. Through her performance and teaching travels, Agami has met and joined forces with some of the world's most talented and dedicated dancers to form Ate9 Dance Company. Recently recognized with the Princess Grace Award for Choreography, Agami and Ate9 are set to redefine and rebuild our concepts of what the art of movement can provide for us all.

Contra-Tiempo is a multilingual Los Angeles-based dance company founded by director Ana Maria Alvarez. Its work, rooted in Salsa & Afro-Cuban, draws from Hip-Hop, urban, and contemporary dance-theater. Contra-Tiempo is a rich tapestry of professional dancers and performers from varied styles, many of whom are immigrants or first generation North Americans, and exist within the varied and infinitely complex political and personal landscapes that Alvarez addresses both on and off stage. Resident composer and co-founder, César Alvarez, approaches the music for the group as if it were a new genre. Contra-Tiempo's movement narrative calls for a complete rebuilding of "dance music" using a sonic vocabulary as far-reaching and diverse as the company members' backgrounds

Chicago's Deeply Rooted Dance Theater (DRDT) is rooted in traditions of American and African-American dance, storytelling, and universal themes that spark a visceral experience and ignite an emotional response in diverse audiences worldwide. DRDT, under the artistic leadership of former company member Nicole Clarke-Springer, collaborates with nationally renowned choreographers, across the spectrum of modern, ballet, and various styles of African dance, to reflect contemporary voices.

Far From The Norm, under the artistic direction of Botis Seva, has carved a reputation as a highly skilled and experimental Hip-Hop collective. Based in London, the troupe's burning scrutiny of public preoccupations, politics, and the contemporary world fuels its work and demands a response. its aim is to create work collaboratively and to continuously reinvent and discover new ways of deconstructing different Hip-Hop and street dance vocabularies. Far From The Norm's portfolio transcends live theater performances, outdoor shows, immersive experiences, and film. Beyond the stage, Far From The Norm has a commitment to outreach, participation and artist development and we are embedding the development of artists at our core.